Students from Liaocheng University in Shandong province wear masks bearing non-smoking signs to demonstrate their opposition to tobacco. Anti-smoking activists have made huge efforts in the past decade to push for greater controls on the sale and use of tobacco in China. Zhao Yuguo / For China Daily

As people across the globe mark UN World Cancer Day, activists in China continue to push for tougher regulations on tobacco products in the face of powerful opposition, as Wang Xiaodong reports.

Even though she retired nine years ago, Wu Yiqun's days are still extremely full. As one of the leading figures in China's anti-smoking campaign, the 69-year-old spends most of her time working for tougher controls on tobacco, conducting research, lecturing at universities, sending proposals to the government, publicly criticizing the monopoly of the tobacco companies, and even reporting officials who smoke in public.

"I don't care when people say: 'You're so old. Why do you continue to make trouble? Why don't you take a rest?'" said Wu, a public health expert and founder of the ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development, speaking ahead of UN World Cancer Day, which falls on Wednesday.

Until she retired in 2006, Wu worked as a researcher for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. She started the NGO as a way of continuing her fight against smoking. "Tobacco control concerns the lives of more than 1 million people every year. This cause is more important to me than anything else," she said.

Minority rule

The National Health and Family Planning Commission estimates that there are more than 300 million smokers in China, and that smoking-related diseases account for 1.36 million deaths every year. Given that the total population is 1.3 billion, the commission says the minority is putting about 730 million non-smokers at risk, mainly from the effects of secondhand smoke.

Meanwhile, according to a January news release from the World Health Organization, every year more than 3 million people in China die prematurely - that is, before the age of 70 - from cancer, and heart and lung diseases, that are largely preventable, but are often the result of unhealthy lifestyles and habits. It said that while just 2 percent of Chinese women smoke, the figure for men is more than 50 percent.

In November, the State Council proposed China's toughest-ever regulations on tobacco control, including banning smoking in all indoor public places and further restricting the number of places where smoking is allowed outdoors.

Although the proposal is still awaiting ratification, many experts have already hailed it as a major victory in the fight against tobacco. Bernhard Schwartlander, WHO's representative in China, said: "The policies included in the draft regulations will reduce the smoking rate in China, and, if fully implemented, will make an enormous contribution to addressing the growing epidemic of non-communicable disease in China".

The Chinese Association on Tobacco Control has also reported that in anticipation of the new rules, strict controls have already been implemented in more than a dozen cities, including Beijing, Guangzhou in Guangdong province, and Hangzhou in Zhejiang province.

Female campaigners

That progress has been achieved thanks to the unceasing efforts of anti-smoking activists who have played a major role in the campaign since the early stages in the late 1990s. Many of the best-known activists have been women, such as Yang Gonghuan, former vice-director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Xu Guihua, vice-director of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control. Two other powerful women, Li Bin, head of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, and Cui Li, one of the commission's vice-ministers, are also known to be firm supporters of tobacco control.

Wu started planning the ThinkTank Research Center for Health Development in 2001, five years before she retired. She said she started the NGO so she could continue her crusade but employ methods different from those used by the CDC, a government organization.

"NGOs can play a more independent role in tobacco control," she said, pointing out that experts at NGOs are not only better able to talk openly with government officials, but are also more likely to offer detached opinions because they have no need to curry favor with the administration.

"For example, it's difficult for officials or experts in a government department to raise objections against the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration, but experts employed by NGOs don't have the same concerns, so they can be more direct," she said.

In recent years, Wu has been blunt in her criticism of the failure to stop promotions and covert ads online, because as a signatory of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, China is obliged to ban all forms of tobacco advertising.

She doesn't just target the industry, though, and has reported several officials who were seen smoking in public or had helped tobacco companies advertise their products. "Officials are a very important link in tobacco control, and they should play a leading role in the fight against smoking," Wu said.

Despite the progress made in recent years, the government needs to fully implement the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which it ratified in 2005, especially the comprehensive ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, she said. "Tobacco promotions still exist, and some companies even advertise their products online."